


Did it have to be You?

by hamstercheese7



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, M/M, One Shot, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmates, War, minor gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:53:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26659261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamstercheese7/pseuds/hamstercheese7
Summary: "His vision flickered, going gray for a moment, all the color fading. The red blood turning black, the blue of his gown turning monochrome. His heart seized, the entire world spinning wildly around him before colors returned. Terror gripped Law’s throat, and he whipped his head towards the tent entrance, knowing that beyond it, somewhere, was Smoker."Soulmates AU, SmoLaw One Shot
Relationships: Smoker/Trafalgar D. Water Law
Comments: 6
Kudos: 63





	Did it have to be You?

**Author's Note:**

> If you want music to go with this fic, I wrote the entire thing to Promise by Ben Howard.

His arms were coated in blood, up to his elbows, the blue gloves and gown he was wearing splattered with it. The blood wouldn’t stop coming either, not until he closed the oozing stomach wound afflicting the man on his operating table. Law’s own heart beat steadily in his ears in contrast to the erratic beeps from his patient’s heart rate monitor. The lights in the tent flickered overhead, throwing grotesque shadows across the walls, the hum of the generator just outside the tent like the constant grinding of teeth. Shouting, explosions, and gunfire could be heard not far off. The third skirmish this month, and it wouldn’t be the last. Law concentrated, trying to carefully remove the grenade shrapnel from the wound before stomach acid leached deeper into the surrounding tissue. The tent was sickeningly warm despite the freezing ice outside, the smell enough to make you sick.

It happened then. His vision flickered, going gray for a moment, all the color fading. The red blood turning black, the blue of his gown turning monochrome. His heart seized, the entire world spinning wildly around him before colors returned. Terror gripped Law’s throat, and he whipped his head towards the tent entrance, knowing that beyond it, somewhere, was Smoker. 

He’d felt this before, years prior as he left the icy cold of Punk Hazard. But he’d been less scared then, too wrapped up in his plans to end Doflamingo to give much of a shit about anything, let alone his soulmate nearly vanishing from his life as quickly as he’d entered it.

The machine nearest him screeched, and Law blinked. He couldn’t think about that right now. The man dying on the table in front of him needed his attention. He imagined his soulmate was somewhere, their vision fluctuating too. 

He turned back to his work, pushing the fear away as his vision flickered, two, three, four more times over the next few hours as he finished surgery. Law wished he felt relief as his vision steadied out, but honestly it was lost in the haze as the next patient was wheeled in. And the next after that. 

And the next after that.

\---

The patients stopped coming sometime in the desperate early hours of the morning. Exhaustion made Law’s hands shake, the ground jarring his numb feet with every step, the ice and frost treacherous in the dawn twilight. It wasn’t far to his barracks, he needed to sleep, or at least try. Getting off of his aching feet was about as far as he could think ahead at the moment. 

A noise in the gray darkness made him turn his head. A voice actually, the brief baleful glow from the entrance of one of the other medical tents illuminated the shape of two humans exiting the tent. He recognized the larger one instantly, the shape of his broad shoulders and square jaw practically burned into Law’s mind. He froze, watching them. “Smoker-san, you really shouldn’t be moving! Chopper-kun sai-” came Captain Tashigi’s voice. The concern in it was tinged with fear. She was only a few inches from Smoker, her hand out, ready to grab him like she expected him to fall.

Law could empathize with that, he too had resigned himself to that idea that one day Smoker would in fact, fall. It would be so much easier if she had been Smoker’s soulmate instead, easier on both of them. His heart twinged.

“Doesn’t matter, enemy hasn’t stopped, I won’t either,” came Smoker's strained but recognizable growl. Law could pick it out anywhere. He watched Tashigi sigh, then follow after him as he stumbled towards the direction of the Command tent. Heading towards Law, whose feet suddenly wouldn’t move. He didn’t make a sound as they approached, his eyes scanning over Smoker, trying to identify what kind of injury had nearly killed him. 

The taller man dragged his feet, concentrating on placing one foot in front of the other, just like Law in his single-mindedness to get where he was going. “Oh,” it was Tashigi who spotted Law first, her quiet surprise startling Smoker, who stiffened. 

Bad move, Law could see his jaw clench, the sweat breaking out across his brow. Tashigi noticed too, and quickly stepped up to support him. If Law nearly losing his ability to see colors hadn’t told him that Smoker was gravely injured, the way he leaned against his second-in-command certainly did. A horrible pang of envy stabbed through him. “Trafalgar-san,” she nodded his way. Her voice was tight. It was no secret to anyone in camp that he and Smoker only barely got along. 

If only they knew why. 

Smoker was staring at the ground at Law’s feet, his breathing heavy but stilted. Law’s jaw tightened. As a doctor, he could order Smoker to rest. He could order him to come to Law’s tent, where he could look him over, touch him, confirm that he was still here. But what would be the point? 

Smoker would either die in this fucking war, or Law himself would, and even if they both lived, they would go back to the way things were before the war, Law a pirate, Smoker a marine. A new wave of exhaustion rippled through him, leaving him trembling in the icy air. 

He nodded at them and continued moving forward, each step like lead. He passed so close to Smoker that he could feel his body heat, unnaturally warm. Stupid fucking idiot had a fever. He knew he should stop, glare at Smoker and tell him that they needed him, that without him, they would lose the frontline. No one doubted his dedication to the cause, no one would think him weak or inept if he rested for just a little while. 

But because it was Smoker, Law would say nothing. Because if he did, then he showed he cared. And if he cared, then he had to acknowledge the unspoken thing that sat between them. And that would be harder for both of them. Law grit his teeth and kept going.

It was only a few hours later that he was summoned from his tent to use his powers to try and remove the bacteria that was ravaging Smoker’s system from his injuries. As he sat there, next to the stubborn bastard’s unconscious form, he hated that he only ever got to touch him when he was hurting.

\---

Two months they’d been stationed out here, in the middle of Tamarack Island. The front lines of the “War that Embroiled the World” in the North Blue. Two long months that the Freedom Fighters had been battling World Government forces in skirmish after skirmish. When Law had been assigned, he hadn’t expected to be placed under Smoker’s command. The War had split the Navy into two factions, half staying loyal to the World Government and Celestial Dragons, the other half joining forces with the Revolutionaries, ragtag bands of pirates and Straw Hat Alliances. Despite them now being allies, they still avoided each other as much as possible, some unspoken mutual agreement to pretend that the moment their eyes met on Punk Hazard, the world stopped being shades of gray.

There shouldn’t have been anything special about Tamarack Island. It was mostly cold mountains and snowy forest. The civilian population subsisted on the western coast, though most of them had fled once the war reached their shores. Unfortunately, this shit little island sat directly in the middle of the fastest trading routes across the North Blue, meaning whichever side claimed it would control the Northern Sea. 

And now the battles were ramping up, more vicious clashes, more casualties, more deaths. It was getting harder to gain ground on enemy forces, and even harder to maintain their position. Law was used to being an underdog. Used to being outnumbered. Used to being underestimated. That was the life of a pirate. 

He wasn’t used to day after day after day of patients. Men and women dragged screaming and bleeding into his medical tent, or worse catatonic and staring. He wasn’t used to the sporadic access to electricity, the threat of attack at near all hours. He was used to the underhandedness of the underworld, not to the systematic attacks and brutal slaughter of an enemy force. When he had engaged the Navy in the past, it had been small flash battles that he could normally escape in his submarine. Nothing like this.

Nothing like the last godforsaken three days. 

A snowstorm had blown in as enemy forces once again tried to break through their defensive line. For three fucking days, Law had been awake. He’d long stopped noticing the way his hands shook, the way everything around him pulsed at the edges of his vision. He couldn’t smell blood anymore, had forgotten what hunger felt like. There was only the operating table, and the never ending stream of people on it. Each one depending on him, the man with Death tattooed across his hands.

What he couldn’t forget was the cold. It seeped into him, through his jacket under his medical gown, below his skin and deep, deep into his bones, into his brain, like a fucking ice pick embedded in his flesh. 

It was twilight when he left the surgeon’s tent. There may not be any more surgeries for the moment, but there were plenty of patients with broken bones and torn flesh that needed wounds stitched, and splints set. Always, always, always more.

Exhaustion dragged on him like an anchor, dogging each step he took towards the secondary and tertiary medical tents. But if he stopped moving, the cold would get him. 

The world spun around him, the snow swirling through the air, his head was too light as men rushed past him, back and forth, just dark shapes moving against the static white of the world around them. He took another few steps, the wind bashing against him. He could rest for a moment once he got done with the next patient. They needed every soldier they had, or this war, this battle, those lives on the operating table would be for nothing.

Law took another step and the world tilted sideways, the lead weight of his own bones pulling him towards the frozen earth. The shapes continued moving past him as he felt his back hit the ground. The wet ice began seeping in as he stared up at the dark gray clouds above him. Was this what Cora saw as he faded away? No sky, only the ice against his skin?

He needed to get up, needed to move, but the cold had him now. Darkness pulled at the edges of his vision, the sounds of boots and shouting indistinct and fuzzy. He needed to get to the next patient. He needed to get up. One shout pierced through the haze, low and furious. He knew that sound. With a gargantuan effort, Law turned his head, light spilling across the ground as someone shoved open the flap of the Command Tent turning the snow covered earth to warm amber. 

He awoke hours later on a medical cot with the smell of cigars coating his skin. He clenched his teeth and pushed himself to his feet. He had patients to see.

\---

He’d been taken off the early morning rotation after his exhaustion episode. He hated it, it wasn’t like he slept anyway. Instead he laid in his cot staring at the ceiling of the shoddy tent and tried to remember what it felt like to be warm. If he survived this place, he wanted to live on a summer island, never ever see snow again. Let even memories of it be burned away under the red hot glare of the sun. 

He wondered if he’d be able to still see red. The thought made his chest clench. He couldn’t lay here any longer. Law climbed out of his cot, pulling on his black feathered coat and slipped like a wraith out of the barracks.

After a week, the snow storm had blown itself out, and the world was silent. Enemy forces had been pushed back for now. Law stared about the quiet sprawling camp as he made his way northwards. Other than the men on patrol, and those on cooking duty, he seemed to be the only one awake. There was still fresh snow on the ground, yet undisturbed by boots. But Law wanted out, away from this. To be able to forget, if only for a moment that he was here in the middle of a war. To get away from the man who wouldn’t ever fully leave his thoughts, always on the periphery.

The sun was still a time from rising, the muted tones of blue and gray making the world look like it was frozen in time beyond the bare trees. Their base was close to a mostly frozen river that Law followed along, pieces of ice occasionally cracking and burbling. 

The gray of the trees and the utter silence of the morning was soothing. No sounds of marching, of gunfire, of messengers running at all hours. Gone was the constant sound of generators, and the smell of disinfectant. 

Just the damp scent of cold snow, and the quiet of the morning air, and his own breath. He crested a short incline and froze. Near the water's edge, on top of a weathered boulder sat Smoker, his jacket folded next to him, his knees pulled up against his bandaged chest. He was staring eastward, at the snow covered treeline. The expression on his face was...painful. Too similar to the look Law saw on himself in the mirror. Tired, haggard, bereft. 

An expression that he’d never seen on Smoker’s face. Smoker always looked furious, angry, determined, and exasperated. Not this. Law shouldn’t be witnessing this, this was private, and yet, he couldn’t look away. He stepped forward unthinkingly, like his physical self was trying to reach out, and a twig snapped.

Smoker whipped his head around in Law’s direction. Their eyes met. The silence in the clearing seemed to ring loud in Law’s ears. This was the first time they’d been alone together in years. “Am I needed back at camp?” Smoker asked, his tone neutral, reframing his face to look normal, calm. “If you were, they wouldn’t send me,” Law stated the obvious. Smoker narrowed his eyes at him. “Then what are you doing here Law?” he growled. Because he needed to pretend that everything was okay for five minutes was too raw of an answer, and none of Smoker’s fucking business. Just like it was none of Law’s business why Smoker was out here either. 

He didn’t answer and rolled his eyes instead, starting to walk again. Smoker dissolved into smoke and reformed off the rock. “You’re supposed to be resting, not wandering around,” came his voice now from behind him. Law’s eye twitched. He stopped and looked over his shoulder, gaze pointedly fixed on Smoker’s bandaged chest, his near fatal wound only a couple of weeks old. “Like you can talk, Smoker-ya.” 

Smoker folded his arms across his chest. Law could feel the heat of his glare on his back as he continued walking. “I’m expendable, you’re not,” Smoker said softly. The words slammed into Law like getting shot by Doflamingo. Expendable. Like he wasn’t the man everyone looked to for guidance here, like Tashigi didn’t look at him like he was her world, like the colors wouldn’t literally fade from Law’s life without him. 

“I’ll remember that next time you’re on my operating table and I feel tired,” Law hissed. It was cruel he knew, but he didn’t do well with bullshit. His chest felt tight, his shoulders clenching. Smoker was silent as Law continued walking. He had almost left the clearing when Smoker almost whispered, “Why did it have to be you?” 

Anger bloomed hot and wretched in Law’s chest. He turned around to face him. So they were finally going to talk about it. The fact that this one thing, something that should be celebrated, instead for them felt like a death sentence. Because how could it not be? How could they be together when they could barely stay civil to one another? “Funny, I ask myself the same thing. Why the fuck did it have to be you?” He found himself crossing the clearing, getting close, right in Smoker’s face. If he wanted to have this conversation now, then so be it. 

“Why you, Smoker-ya? Why did it have to be a marine who is too pigheaded to realize how much others need him?! Why couldn’t your soulmate have been Tashigi who puts up with all your shit?! Why did it have to be me?!” Law snarled into his face. That was the first time Law had called their bond by its name.

“Keep her out of this,” Smoker growled. Of course, he’d focus on that instead everything else. “I didn’t ask for a selfish pirate to be mine, either!” he glared down at Law. “Oh I’m the selfish one?! Says the asshole who goes out to the front lines and almost dies over and over again!” his voice rose, the sound startlingly loud in the silence of the clearing. 

“You’re not much fucking better! I felt it when Doflamingo nearly killed you, I feel it when you-” Smoker turned his head from him then, breathing heavily. Law clenched his hands into fists. “Well that makes two of us then! Maybe you should let the next attempt work so I can stop waiting for it to happen and be able to fucking sleep!” The words were harsh, too harsh, too mean, and too real. He couldn’t be with the man he was destined to be with, so it was easier to make him hate him, then he wouldn’t want him in the first place.

“Maybe you should do it yourself then!” Smoker roared. 

Something inside Law snapped and he threw the first punch, his fist connecting with Smoker’s jaw with a sharp crack. Their eyes met, and then Smoker was tackling him to the ground. Law shoved him away, slamming his knee into Smoker’s solar plexus, the two of them now on the ground, grappling for purchase on the other.

It wasn’t like their fight on Punk Hazard, neither of them had their weapons and it never even occurred to Law to use his powers. He was too fucking exhausted to do more than try and punch every part of Smoker he could reach, Smoker, too injured to do much more than the same thing. They tussled on the ground, rolling over and over, until Law ended up on top, straddling Smoker’s hips, his hands around his neck squeezing, Smoker’s hands around his neck, doing the same thing.

Law’s heartbeat pounded in his ears, staring down at Smoker’s face, his vision flickering, the blood on Smoker’s split lip flashing between red and black. He couldn’t breathe, the grip on his neck from Smoker’s large hands as strong as his own. A golden glow suddenly reflected off of Smoker’s white hair, the snow and ice going from white and gray to orange and pink. The whole world lighting up as the sun rose, the sudden brightness illuminating the bands of color in Smoker’s furious amber eyes. 

Law froze, staring, utterly transfixed, his hands loosening their grip, Smoker’s eyes going from furious, to confused, to...something else. An emotion Law didn’t recognize, or at least had never seen on his face before. The anger inside of his chest was snuffed out like a candle as Law gazed down at him. His hands moved of their own accord, his thumb grazing over Smoker’s jaw, their faces only a handswidth apart. 

He was so goddamned beautiful and this place was hell and Law was so tired of fighting. There was enough fighting in their world, he didn’t need to add more of it. He leaned in, and pressed his lips to Smoker’s, gently and utterly terrified. His lips were soft. Smoker let go of his neck, probably from shock. Law pulled back, Smoker staring up at him. The sun continued to rise, the golden glow disappearing, the spell ending. 

What the hell was he doing? Nothing had changed, they still couldn’t be. He scrambled backward, breathing heavily. Smoker stayed on the ground. Law couldn’t bear to look at him. “Room,” he whispered, the bubble expanding outward, and Law swapped places with the farthest thing he could find.

\---

\---

Night came quiet, no sign of enemy encroachment. They were licking their wounds for now. That gave Smoker a little breathing room to plan their next move. Or he would, if he could think. But he couldn’t, because his thoughts wouldn’t stay away from this morning, and his bruised jaw and split lip didn’t help, every twinge just taking him straight back to the clearing. 

The way Law’s eyes had matched the golden hue of the rising sun, the look on his face as he stared at Smoker, so soft, and absolutely terrified. His feelings raw and terrible to behold because they looked exactly like the ones Smoker kept locked away. This was war, he couldn’t look soft, he couldn’t look afraid. And when it came to Law, doubly so. Law was a pirate and pirates were always pirates and Smoker was a Marine and though they were on the same side, if they made it through this, they would just go back to that.

Except.

Except for the reason Smoker held deep within himself. The reason he fought so hard in this war in the first place. Something he hadn’t told anyone, because the one person who it might matter to disliked him, obviously hated the fact that they were something as life changing as soulmates. Not that Smoker could blame him, Law was as prickly as they came, and he wasn’t wrong when he’d yelled at him earlier that it would have been easier if it was Tashigi. Because she did put up with his shit. She was somehow cursed with the ability to see straight through whatever front Smoker put up. 

But she wasn’t his soulmate. Law was. Law with his near suicidal determination to accomplish his goals. Law with his snarky, sarcastic demeanor, who could barely stand to be in the same room as Smoker. Trafalgar fucking Law, who spoke softly and hid the way he cared the same stupid, foolish, useless way Smoker did.

Law who kissed him this morning, after they tried to kill one another in a fit of...Smoker wasn’t even sure what to call it. He’d seen real rage on Law’s face, directed at Vergo. What he’d worn on his face when he looked at Smoker was something more like heartbreak.

He ran a hand over his face. 

And then the idiot had run off. Before they could talk, before Smoker could even let his stunned thoughts gather into a coherent sentence. 

But that was earlier. And he knew what he had to do now. They needed to talk. He waited till he knew Law was supposed to be off rotation for the night and left his quarters.

The medical staff barracks were as crappy as his as he stood outside the entrance. His heart was beating hard against his chest, fear making his hands shake. Getting killed was easier than this, he never felt this kind of fear on the battlefield. This was the kind of fear that made him feel weak, exposed. 

With a deep breath, he pushed the flap open, the lantern light from outside illuminating the small space was empty but for one person in one bunk, who was sitting up, and turning to look towards him.

He closed the flap, the sudden darkness making it easier to breathe. It was easier if he couldn’t see him, or be seen by him. His feet felt like lead, like time was slowing down as he approached Law. He stared down at him as he reached his cot. He could make out his vague outline as his eyes adjusted to the dark. 

Law was looking up at him.

Smoker was never one to beat around the bush when it came down to it. It would hurt less if he just said what he needed to say. Because what they had been doing wasn’t working. It made everything harder, and Smoker was exhausted. “Do you know why I’m fighting on this side in the War, Law?” he asked gently. Yes, he was fighting on this side because it was the right thing to do. To side with the other side was to side with injustice, and compromise his morals. Not something Smoker could do, but in the face of all this death, in the day in and day out of pain, fear, and agonizing life-or-death decisions, he had another, more personal reason. 

“Why Smoker-ya?” came Law’s voice softly. Maybe he could sense the seriousness in Smoker’s voice. He was suddenly reminded of Punk Hazard, as they sat next to one another, Law telling him he was going to Green Bit. Something he didn’t have to say, something only said because they were…

“Because I want to see a world where we don’t have to be enemies,” Smoker said softly. He felt it then, the hesitant brush of fingers against his. They were shaking, just like his own. Something unbearable crashed through his chest as Law took his hand fully. His fingers were freezing in comparison to Smoker’s. He didn’t resist as Law got to his knees and their lips met for the second time. 

Nothing more needed to be said as their kiss deepened.

Nothing more could be said as Law pulled Smoker on top of him, his fingers tangling in his hair, legs wrapping around his waist. The gentleness of it as he pressed his lips against his skin, the slow, soft motions of getting to know one another, and though it was the first time, it felt like coming home.

\---

\---

Warmth radiated through his entire being, the cold pushed away at last as Law listened to Smoker’s quiet breathing against his neck. He stared into the barracks, knowing that come morning, the war would still be ongoing.

“Smoker-ya,” he whispered into the dark. Maybe he could keep the fear at bay if he shared his own hopes with someone else. He felt more than heard Smoker respond. “I… I hope I get to know who you are when we aren’t at war,” he breathed. 

Smoker tightened his grip on Law’s waist, pulling him close.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for the prompt Eyes, but uh, it got away from me a bit. Still applies though I think. I was interested in the concept of the soulmate AU where you see colors for the first time when you meet your significant other. I'm thinking of turning this one shot into a long fic. Thoughts?  
> Fun fact, I listened to Promise by Ben Howard 119 times while writing this fic. 
> 
> Let me know your thoughts!
> 
> As always, thank you for reading and you can find me on twitter @buggyisbest


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